Government unlikely to meet legal deadlines in presenting budget draft

The government will probably break the law while preparing next year's budget. This is because Leszek Miller's Cabinet will not meet the deadline to present the draft budget to the Tripartite Commission, as is demanded by the law. Officially, the Cabinet has to present the draft to the commission for an opinion twenty days before it is due to be presented in Parliament. At the same time the Constitution states that the Cabinet has until September 30 to send the draft to Parliament, which means that the Tripartite Commission should receive its copy by September 10. There is little chance that these dates will be kept as Ministers are meeting today in Klarysew to discuss budget proposals. When the Cabinet will accept the draft? "Not by the next meeting of the Cabinet as this is practically impossible," said government spokesman Michal Tober. He added that, "We will not hide the budget draft before the local elections as the previous government did". (Rzeczpospolita, p. A5)